


Pennies From Hollywood

by Darling_Pretty



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AND HOW DID IT GET SO LONG, F/M, Very little dialogue, but daniel is sort of a jerk so i'm not tagging it, it's like a podcast transcript i guess??, old hollywood au, that nobody asked for, there's some minor peggysous in the first half, weird format
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 05:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darling_Pretty/pseuds/Darling_Pretty
Summary: Episode 43: Glitz, Glamour, Grace Series, “Peg O’ My Heart: Peggy Carter”Welcome to another episode of Pennies from Hollywood, a podcast that explores the lesser-known histories of Hollywood’s Golden Age. This season, we’re focusing on the so-called glamour girls of the forties and fifties, what most people consider the classic era of Hollywood. And today, we’re focusing on one of the first stars to really come of age and stardom in this era.At one point, she was the most sought-after star at MGM, one of the highest paid actors in the world. She made her image and her mark in her seeming contradictions. British and yet exuding that all-American pluck, an innocent sexpot, the femme fatale with unshakable morals, and at one point the sexiest woman on earth whose down-to-earth persona made her seem completely accessible and available to those who loved her.That’s right, darlings. Buckle up, we’re talking about Peggy Carter.





	Pennies From Hollywood

**Author's Note:**

> So recently I've been obsessively listening to You Must Remember This, which is an amazing podcast dedicated to exploring the "secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century." It's great and you should totally check it out. In any case, this is blatantly inspired by that format and podcast, because now all I can think about is Steggy as old Hollywood movie stars. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. Hopefully the second half will be posted within the next week.

_Pennies From Hollywood_

Episode 43: Glitz, Glamour, Grace Series, “Peg O’ My Heart: Peggy Carter (pt.1)”

. . . 

Welcome to another episode of _Pennies from Hollywood_ , a podcast that explores the lesser-known histories of Hollywood’s Golden Age. This season, we’re focusing on the so-called glamour girls of the forties and fifties, what most people consider the classic era of Hollywood. And today, we’re focusing on one of the first stars to really come of age and stardom in this era.

 

At one point, she was the most sought-after star at MGM, one of the highest paid actors in the world. She made her image and her mark in her seeming contradictions. British and yet exuding that all-American pluck, an innocent sexpot, the femme fatale with unshakable morals, and at one point the sexiest woman on earth whose _down_ -to-earth persona made her seem completely accessible and available to those who loved her.

 

That’s right, darlings. Buckle up, we’re talking about Peggy Carter.

 

. . .

 

Before we can get to Peggy Carter’s time at MGM, we have to understand who she was before she got there. Born Margaret Carter to parents in Hampstead, England, she was a tomboy for most of her childhood, wearing her hair short and constantly running around the neighborhood. She would later write in her 1992 autobiography, “I was a terror- my mother couldn’t have been more worried.”

 

And she wasn’t lying. Amanda Carter was, by all accounts, a rather exacting woman. She was raised by a naval officer and raised from the time she could speak to be a hostess, especially after her own mother passed away. As the eldest of three girls, her father’s hosting duties often fell to her. Amanda spoke of ten of the importance of a cleanly and organized home and she strove to raise her own children to value it as much as she did.

 

Unfortunately for Amanda her children with Charles Carter, a well-to-do business man with a taste for adventure, took more than their brown hair and complexions from their father. Charles could be boisterous, loud and loving. He often refused to chastise his children for behavior that their mother deemed unacceptable. He encouraged their roughhousing and mud tracking to the point that Amanda was clearly fed up by the time Margaret was ten. Not that she’d ever leave him.

 

Amanda had always wanted a daughter, but Michael came first and she doted on him. Still, he wasn’t exactly a little one she could dress up and share her wisdom with. When Margaret was born, Amanda was convinced she _needed_ to be the mother of a little girl. Unfortunately, Margaret would never quite live up to her mother’s ideal.

 

Margaret was a difficult child. She didn’t like the traditional things that a girl in the 20s should be expected to like. She much preferred running around, slaying imaginary dragons with her brother than help her mother tend house. Her father indulged her entirely, allowing her to learn to shoot alongside her brother and often treating her as a second son. Amanda would always complain that mud and dirt were impossible to keep out of the house.

 

This continued until Peggy- still called Margaret- hit puberty. While she was once slim and boyish, her frame filled out. And _kept_ filling. By 14, Margaret’s hips and chest had firmly placed her out of vogue for the 20s boyish fashion, but certainly caused the boys of the neighborhood to take notice. Suddenly her playmates of her youth wanted to hold her hand. Boys three or four years older who had never had time for her now. They looked at her differently.

 

In short, Margaret had become beautiful. And she wasn’t quite prepared for it. Skirts had to be worn now, as well as a bra. She’d never wanted to be too feminine and now her body was aggressively so.

 

But Margaret learned quickly. She’d always been smart and strategic. And she quickly learned that a little bit of flirting could get her a long way.

 

This alarmed the Carters. Their daughter was quickly growing out of a stage they were comfortable with. At Charles Carter’s insistence, his beloved Margaret was sent to an all-girls boarding school some miles away.

 

There are conflicting accounts of how successful Margaret was at school. She was certainly smart and always earned top marks. However, she also always seemed to be in trouble one way or another.

 

In her biography she recollected an incident involving the headmaster’s booze… and his wife’s knickers. On a dare, Margaret snuck into their quarters and stole a handful of the wife’s panties, only getting caught when she returned to getting caught when she returned to knick the bottle of brandy she had seen on the counter. She was severely punished—the school was a proponent of corporeal punishment—but Margaret didn’t mind. Rather proudly, she bragged in her book that she was the only one lashed and “I deserved every one. It was greedy to go back for the liquor.”

 

She made friends at school, albeit perhaps ones who encouraged her wild streak. They would sometimes sneak into town, flirting with the soda jerks for free milkshakes or sneaking into movie theaters.

 

It was on one fateful trip into town that Margaret Carter, of Hampstead, England was set on a crash course with Hollywood and becoming Peggy Carter.

 

How much of her origin story was real and how much was part of the star-making mythos is unclear. What _is_ clear is that an extraordinary amount of luck came into Margaret’s life very quickly.

 

Producer-director at MGM Hugh Jones was in England scouting locations for an upcoming picture centered around a boarding school and he came to the town. Sitting in a diner, eating a burger, he evidently spotted sixteen-year-old Margaret sitting at the counter flirting with the “acne-ridden burger flipper.” In _his_ autobiography, Hugh would claim that the sun burst through the clouds at that moment and a beam illuminated Margaret’s face. This probably isn’t true. It _was_ England, after all, and Hugh Jones was prone to flowery language and over exaggeration, especially when it came to the woman he considered his biggest star.

 

In any case, Jones approached Margaret and asked if she wanted to make a picture. She’d become world-wise in her time at boarding school and wary of any man who approached her. So Margaret immediately shot back, “Not the kind of picture you’re thinking of, mister.”

 

But Jones wouldn’t be dissuaded and in two weeks he’d convinced her that he was legitimate, going so far to visit the headmaster with a letter of introduction from the great Louis B. Mayer himself—MGMs head.

 

By 1933, Margaret was in Hollywood. Newly 18 and safely installed at MGM, she underwent the standard star treatment. That meant plucking her eyebrows, learning to do makeup, and a whole new wardrobe. Her hair was to be pin-curled and set each night, giving her hair body it never had before. Her teeth were straightened and she was given acting classes. And suddenly, little tomboy Margaret became glamorous.

 

Her signature red lips wouldn’t come until later, but Hugh Jones was convinced that his discovery would become a star. Louis B. Mayer had to be a bit more hesitant but he was sold when he saw her screen test. Still, Margaret was a common name and it wouldn’t do. Margaret, however, was adamant that she would keep her name or something like it and when Margaret Carter decided on something she usually got it. Especially where Hugh Jones was concerned.

 

And so, though Mayer was insistent, Margaret would not become Andrea or Gloria. Instead, she became Peggy, a quiet homage to Peg Entwistle, the star who had become more famous in death than life when she jumped off the Hollywood sign and Bette Davis’ idol.

 

Peggy Carter would get her first chance at stardom when Jones put her in a small but crucial role in his movie _The Salvager_. Peggy’s role was as an innocent girl next door who becomes corrupted by her no-good boyfriend until she is a fallen woman, despite the protagonist’s, played by Roger Dooley, best efforts.

This seems unbelievable in light of Peggy’s future star turns as surprisingly liberated women given the times. But in the mid 30s, in a Hollywood governed by the Hays code, this is what was expected. And available. Besides, at this point, Peggy Carter had no cache.

 

She stole the picture out from under the nose of veteran actor Dooley and became a sensation almost immediately, though not exactly on the strength of her acting. Her wardrobe, though perfectly modest and in code, was particularly tailored to show off her… um, _assets_. Wearing a sweater and full skirt, tightly belted, there was no mistaking the allure of her character and therefore Dooley could be forgiven for falling for her early in the film, regardless of her increasingly unwholesome behavior and for wanting to save her.

 

Peggy Carter was essentially the sweater girl before the sweater girl was Lana Turner. But unlike Lana, her career hardly took off.

 

Hoping to recreate the success, Carter was paired again with Dooley, this time as his true romantic interest, even though he was clearly old enough to be her father, and with director Jones.

 

But Jones, an avowed womanizer, began to obsess over his star in a way that would make her truly uncomfortable. Ostensibly helping Peggy to run lines or character, Jones would invite her to his apartment late at night or out to dinner. He constantly found excuses to touch Peggy on set. And while at first Peggy tried to grit her teeth and bear it, she _hated_ it.

 

So Peggy did the unthinkable. She went over Jones’ head and straight to Mayer. And in a shocking turn of events, he sided with _Peggy_. Of course, this was still the 30s, so siding with Peggy meant taking her off the picture without breaking her contract and getting her away from Jones. Veteran Broadway actress Angie Martinelli would step into the role to glowing reviews.

 

Peggy’s career faltered. No one seemed to know quite what to do with her. Peggy was young enough and wholesome enough to play the ingénue, but her body’s proportions hewed more closely to the blond bombshell type that was swiftly taking cinema by storm. No one could decide if she was one or the other and the studio system ran on typecasting.

 

Peggy played several small roles all underwhelming. Having watched them, I can say they are certainly not her best work. Her performances are unpolished and she almost seems unsure. Her performances were unpolished. This is hardly surprising. Peggy had only been acting for a little over a year and a half, and the disruption in her career hadn’t exactly put her in a place to be confident.

 

It seemed like MGM would just let her contract lapse. At this point, Peggy was starring in essentially B movies, if she was starring at all. She’d been working non-stop for almost three years and had yet to have a true box hit. And she was growing tired of Hollywood. She found the people there vapid and shallow and she was homesick. She hadn’t seen her parents or brother in years, though Peggy and Michael exchanged letters sporadically.

 

“Wish you were here,” Peggy wrote Michael in 1934. “You wouldn’t believe the stupidity I’m subjected to daily. They talk to me as though I’m a child. Apparently having breasts makes one an imbecile.”

 

If she was so miserable, Michael wrote back on several occasions, why didn’t she just come home?

 

“It’s awful, but I think I have to be here.” And then, Peggy wrote, “Besides, you know I’m a stubborn old thing.”

 

And thank God she was. In 1936, while seemingly running out Peggy’s contract, RKO called wanting a starlet to stare opposite their biggest male star, Jack Thompson.

 

Thompson was 1935’s biggest box office draw but he was also the studio’s biggest pain. Several drunken tirades in public, as well as a noisy contentious breakup with glamor girl Dorothy Underwood—who would later leave Hollywood for Broadway and a surprisingly public romance with another woman—had tarnished Thompson’s star and threatened his earnings.

 

Onscreen, Thompson’s type was tough-talking cad, one who often bullied his love interest into falling for him, but that was supposed to be fantasy. RKO was all too aware that if the fickle press turned against their star, dollars would wane. Especially in the more conservative middle of the country. And so they knew Thompson needed good press. But he’d burned bridges with most of the women in Hollywood, either through broken-off relationships or through unprofessional behavior on set. So they called MGM and asked for a relatively unknown starlet.

 

And MGM offered up Peggy because what did _they_ have to lose?

 

Shooting was rocky at first. By _all_ accounts, Thompson’s first impression of Carter wasn’t great and the feeling was quite mutual. Thompson’s first words to her in their first read were to ask her to grab him some coffee, assuming this nobody _couldn’t_ be his costar. Peggy raised an eyebrow. Then she very coolly walked to the craft service table, poured a cup, walked back, and _drank the whole thing_ , staring Jack Thompson in the eye the whole time.

 

“I was nearly sick,” she’d remember later. “I couldn’t stand black coffee at the time.”

 

But it was _so_ worth it.

 

While filming, Thompson and Carter fell into something like friendship. They still didn’t _like_ each other necessary. But Thompson felt a begrudging respect for her and Carter could actually use some of his expertise in front of the camera. Besides, they both took smoke breaks and would often sit next to each other in silence.

 

In fact, more than once, Carter was known to bail her costar out of scrapes. More than once, she pulled him from bars, and once from the drunk tank. “Oh, he was a cad,” Peggy said in a 1996 interview. “A complete rake. But he was my cad, in a way.”

 

There wasn’t any hint of romance, at least on her side. Thompson proposed once. “Have you ever had gin come out of your nose?” Peggy said in a late-in-life interview. “It’s entirely unpleasant.”

 

In any case, they made the movie. And it was a _hit_. _In Jeopardy_ was a gritty movie, especially for a post-code world. Thompson plays a harried, alcoholic gumshoe. Carter is the wide-eye ingénue who comes to him for help, not a departure from any of her previous roles. But in a shocking third act twist, it’s revealed Peggy’s character Ida is the lynchpin on which a revenge plot against the detective turns.

 

Peggy Carter is a _revelation_ in this film. For most of the film she is practically forgettable, bland and helpless in the way so many ingénues were. Alternately sweet and simpering she is everything expected from the damsel-in-distress. You root for Thompson’s detective to save her, but at the same time it’s a forgettable role. Until that third act.

 

Peggy transforms onscreen in an instant. Right in front of us, her body language changes; her chin turns up, her shoulders square off and her lips turn into a cruel sneer. You suddenly become aware how often her character avoided the light in the first two thirds of the movie and now her stunning, sharp beauty is obvious and well lit. In an instant, she turns from damsel to mastermind. Her movements become feline… and _ferocious_. She slaps Thompson across the face and her face is cold, statuesque, and downright _frightening._

Turns out Peggy Carter was an Actor with a capital A. She walked off with the picture, much to MGM’s delight and Jack Thompson’s infinite ire. They’d been friendly onset, or at least as friendly as Thompson could be with a woman who wouldn’t give him what they wanted. But rather than feeling proud of the critical and commercial success of the movie, he became irate. He began drinking even more heavily. One night, blasted out of his mind, Thompson wrecked his car, seriously injuring his passenger. Everyone survived and RKO did its best to hush up the aftermath. But when a newly healed up Thompson got into a loud, drag-out, drunken barfight with another star, made it impossible to ignore.

 

That star? Daniel Sousa, at the time Peggy Carter’s costar and sometimes boyfriend. But more on that later.

 

. . .

 

Now that Peggy had a successful starring role under her belt, MGM pushed its star-making machine into overdrive. Peggy felt her star beginning to rise, but she still felt as though she had almost no power, which, to be fair, she probably didn’t. And so when MGM pushed her immediately into another film as another glamorous vamp, albeit one less obviously sinister, she went.

 

 _The Eagle_ is a perfectly serviceable movie. MGM was more known for it’s glamorous musicals and _The Eagle_ can’t quite seem to decide if it’s a comedy. It’s not great or bad and it did more than decent work at the box office. In fact, it made back its budget times three.

 

But most importantly, it would put Peggy Carter opposite MGM’s current leading man and dreamboat, Daniel Sousa.

 

 _He_ fell in something like love at first sight; Peggy was a harder sell. But Daniel Sousa hadn’t gotten to where he was without learning a thing or two about reading women and he could see the fierce intelligence and independence behind Peggy’s flirtations and sexuality. So that’s what he appealed to. They chatted for hours on set, ran lines. He asked for book recommendations and returned the favor so they could discuss and debate. In fact, for Peggy’s twenty-second birthday, he sent twenty-two books and twenty-two roses with a note that read “To the smartest woman I know. Another year older and wiser. –D”

 

It was sweet and he wasn’t so obviously flustered by her beauty, a first for Peggy. And slowly, surely, she did fall. Unfortunately, at the time Daniel was still seeing his current girlfriend, Violet Cole.

 

Still, before anything could happen, Peggy insisted that he be free of any and all entanglements. She may have been a flirt, but she was _not_ going to be a homewrecker.

 

He did and quickly. Oddly enough, later in their life, Peggy and Violet would become close. In fact, Violet once stated that their having dated the same man made them closer. In an interview in 1980, when asked about Peggy, Violet laughed and said, “She jumped on that grenade for me.” But for now, they were at odds.

 

In any case, Daniel did break up with Violet but Peggy still didn’t want the relationship to go public.

 

They managed to keep it quiet until the movie’s release when they began to be seen in public together. It was a huge boon to MGM and therefore to Peggy’s career. Dating Daniel skyrocketed her to a level of fame she’d started to acquire, but would have needed several more hits or to become more inclined to self-promotion to achieve.

 

Carter and Sousa were household names and fan magazines reported breathlessly on the developments of their relationship.

 

To the world, their relationship was perfect. And it was. Mostly. The couple was happy. They’d go out to dinner with friends—Peggy became particularly close to Rose Roberts, a character actress who never quite found her place in the glamorous movies or the screwball comedies of he 30s. It would turn out that her forte would be television and Peggy would later be a frequently stop by _The Rose Roberts Hour_ in the late 50s.

 

They’d throw parties that would often last long into the night or go out and party and carouse until the wee hours of the morning. Peggy and Daniel were often together and they were seen as presiding over this group of stars.

 

But Daniel could be jealous, especially when it came to Peggy. Whether that stemmed from her looks, which often drew attention, or because her star was rising and he foresaw a future of being Mr. Carter, it often clouded his relationship with Peggy. She was _not_ about to allow him to dictate her friendships especially with men. Especially when she knew he just didn’t like other men objectifying her—though wasn’t that what _he_ was doing to her too?

 

So they’d fight and breakup and get back together, sometimes within the same day. It was almost comfortable, just a part of their relationship.

 

It was during one of these momentary breaks that Daniel went out drinking. He ran into Jack Thompson and, being friendly, they left the first bar and went to another… and another.

 

At some point the conversation turned to Peggy. Thompson had heard they were currently not seeing each other and took it upon himself to comfort his friend, even though Sousa had no doubts that this current snag was just—a snag—and in fact, he’d recently gone and bought a ring.

 

What happened next is up for debate—both parties were plastered so their testimonies can only be trusted so much. Neither would ever fully agree on what happened and neither would tell a story that ever quite matched up.

 

According to Sousa, Thompson started speculating about how much of Carter’s success was up to her talents onscreen and how much was up to her talents in the bedroom. And while Thompson doesn’t dispute this, he does claim that Daniel started swinging with the first comment. Sousa said Thompson had been baiting him for hours with comments about Peggy.

 

In any case, no matter how long it was, Sousa, always protective of his girlfriend’s reputation, started swinging. And Thompson swung back.

 

The fight was loud and wild, breaking glasses and the mirror behind the bar. It took three bartenders to separate the men. Thompson came out worse for the wear, but only just barely. His nose broken and he had bruised ribs and lacerations down the side of his face from where it had been pressed down into the mirror shards.

 

Thompson’s face and career would never entirely recover from the scandal. MGM’s fixers were _not_ about to let their leading man Daniel Sousa go down for this and Thompson had already been on the way out. The public was all too easy to sell on the idea that Daniel Sousa was Prince Charming riding in to save his ladylove from specious speculation.

 

But while Thompson suffered the professional consequences, it was Sousa who suffered personally. While there were women all over the country swooning over his actions, Peggy was distinctly doing the opposite.

 

When she heard about what had happened in her name, she was _furious_. But not, as the public might have expected, at Jack Thompson. No. She was pissed, but she was only pissed at Daniel.

 

Thompson had always been a cad, Peggy insisted, and he always would be a cad. She’d known that; they’d come to an understanding and Peggy couldn’t care less what Jack Thompson thought of her and her achievements. Daniel was not supposed was supposed to know better. He was supposed to be evolved and understand that she was a modern woman. She did _not_ need him to protect her from stupid words. Especially with his fists.

 

It was the death knell of Peggy and Daniel’s relationship. By the end of the year they were completely over, almost comically avoiding each other at dinner parties and splitting their friends as if it was a custody battle.

 

Later, in her memoir, Peggy revealed that she had a terrifying moment where she thought she might have been pregnant after they broke up, but it turned out to be a false alarm and it really only solidified that they were truly over and done with.

 

Daniel ended up giving the ring to his next girlfriend.

 

And Peggy? Well, Peggy would go on to swap studios, become a wartime icon, and also would become half of one of the most iconic and beloved romantic comedy duos in the world. Oh, and she’d also find the greatest love of her life, her partner both onscreen and off, Steve Rogers. Just for fun.

 

But that’s a story for next week. So join us, won’t you, as we head into a country in wartime, a love sweeping generations, and the rising star and subsequent romance of Peggy Carter.


End file.
